bella613's reviews
359 reviews

Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones

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dark lighthearted fast-paced

Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Hungry Ghost by Victoria Ying

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emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.25

The beginning was good but it rubbed me the wrong way that the story is so unrealistically hopeful. Everything is so perfectly tied with a bow. Like why tackle traumatic subjects if you're not going to tackle the traumatic subjects?

To be perfectly honest, its not at all believable that in the face of a large traumatic event like a fathers death, a girl with an eating disorder would magically realize that its not healthy to induce vomiting and be 100% better. Most of the time stress makes eating disorders much harder to escape.

One way I could see this book being relatable is if the interactions between mom and daughter were actually written to be representative of the inner battle and critiques of one person. The two characters were so black and white, and focused, and the mom held all the grief while the daughter didn't even begin to try and process what happened.
I don't like how easily she reconciled with her friend and how quickly everything wrapped up, but I understand that it's meant to be a short book with a happy ending.

Nestlings by Nat Cassidy

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dark slow-paced

3.0

We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida

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lighthearted mysterious medium-paced